


it was always you

by csiwholocked33



Category: Doctor Who RPF, Mattex (fandom)
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluffy as hell, Happy Ending, Sexual Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 03:43:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/908498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/csiwholocked33/pseuds/csiwholocked33
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my garden forever."<br/>--Alfred Lord Tennyson</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I wait in the rain, but I don't complain, because I wait for you

**Author's Note:**

> the story title and all chapter titles are from the perfect song by Ingrid Michaelson, because it used to be my ex and I's song, but it's been 10 months now and I've decided to make it my song again because it's stunningly beautiful and I deserve lovely songs too. :')  
> -csiwholocked33  
> P.S. many thanks to SandBar, who signed on as a co-writer after I'd published the first chapter! xox ♥

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 1 by csiwholocked33 :)

 

He'd always been fascinated by her hands. So small and delicate, and yet so expressive when she was waving guns around and outsmarting everyone as River Song, so strong when her bastard exes clearly could’ve used a good punch but never got one, and so careful when she was holding Salome. Soft fingertips that held whole worlds of secrets, to be revealed only when she chose to caress another; neatly trimmed fingernails she liked to paint cherry red when she wasn’t filming for anything, ones he’d always imagined would feel incredible running up and down his bare back.

He loved her eyes too, the way they sparkled and flickered between a mossy green and a gray-blue shade much like late November skies in London. He’d learned quickly enough that they were how she so convincingly communicated the aura of all-knowing forwardness that has come to be the core of River’s characterization; Alex herself has such knowing, sensual eyes that it’s barely a stretch for her to slip into character, and sometimes he can’t tell if she’s Alex or River in a given moment.

Alex’s hair though, that’s a whole other story. I mean _honestly,_ who wasn’t enamoured with the cloud of golden curls that seemed held in place by magic, unmistakeable and untameable no matter how hard she tried? Matt had often wondered what it would be like to fist his hands in it and pull her face close for a good deep snog, but the few chances he’d had to kiss her—as River and the Doctor, of course—he’d thought better of it, knowing that if he’d surrendered to that little piece of his fantasies regarding Alex he might not be able to control what his body did next.

And her neck… _oh God her neck._ He’d never realized just how attractive a bloody neck could be until he’d met Alex. Every time she threw her head back laughing or arched her spine to give the hair girls a better angle for teasing at her roots, he found himself utterly captivated by the supple muscles and impossibly soft skin there. He so badly wanted to catch her in one of these unaware moments and just brush his lips teasingly along the sensitive area until she begged for more, upon which time he would lick and kiss and nibble all along her jaw and neck and clavicle til he heard her moan.

To even attempt to describe anything as unspeakably sexy as the curves of her torso, Matt firmly believed he’d need words that did not yet exist.  Every time he tried to think up a phrase to convey the dip between her graceful shoulders and her magnificent arse, the best he could come up with was “supercalifragilisticexplialodocious and then some.”  Her fabulous, glorious breasts? Those were solidly beyond English words as well, but he would testify that they’d distracted many a man and women over the years, not to mention fueling their late-night fantasies and multiplying the quality of The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders as a film ten thousand fold. He also particularly adored her stomach, the gentle curve of her smooth, smooth tummy as it rounded out just the right amount from her tiny hourglass of a waist. Then there were her strong thighs, and her wicked smirk-smile, and God how had he forgotten those _lips_? Those lips that always said just the right thing, that could do unimagineable things to a man…

And the thing that made her every feature all the more beautiful? _Her._ She was warm and kind to everyone, an incredible mother and friend, encouraging and hilarious, and at once sexy as hell and sophisticated in a way Matt had never encountered in a real human being before. She was honest but careful, gentle but damned strong, and brilliant but never truly cocky… well, maybe sometimes, but he knew that was only an act. Confident as The Kingston could be, Matt understood the unspoken truth that she had more than her share of doubts and insecurities, although he couldn’t imagine why. Most women would kill to have such a smashing figure, and he never did see the point in her constant mutterings of “I don’t look like I used to, darling;” he thought she looked fucking incredible, always, but whenever he gathered the courage to tell her so she just blushed and waved him off shyly.

Needless to say, Matt was completely infatuated with his gorgeous co-star, “in lust” with her, if you will.

Wanna hear a secret he’s never told anyone before?

He’s also quite worried, because he thinks—well, if he’s being honest here, he _knows—_ that somewhere between the extra takes and lunch breaks, the premieres and read-throughs, the long talks over a glass of wine in her flat and the late nights out dancing with Karen and Arthur…he’s fallen deeply in love with her.

Ooops.


	2. I don't feel pain; you're like novocaine, and I've got you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 2 was written by the lovely SandBar, from Alex's POV. :)

 

She’d always been fascinated by his hands. Since the first read-through of the first episode, when she’d been seated between him and Karen and had been very careful to not seem to stare at either of them, lest the overwhelming self-consciousness cause the whole room to go up in flames, and the only safe place to stare was her script or the table, she’d noticed his hands. Square palms and long fingers—surprisingly graceful hands, even when they were fidgeting with a pencil or overturning a coffee cup. Strong hands, yet capable of great gentleness with the myriad children and cats that constantly wandered the back halls of the studio. Slight calluses on his fingertips from the steel-stringed guitar he kept in his trailer—yet somehow, fingertips she imagined capable of the most exquisite tenderness and delicacy when the occasion called.

  
And he really had lovely arms. Which, she reflected, was an odd thing to consider about someone, but she deeply admired the effortless strength he conveyed, the easy confidenceof movement that made a woman wonder what it would feel like to be encircled by them. Not a body-builder’s or weightlifter’s arms, all knotted and thick with muscle. No, his are long, lean, sinuous. Sensuous. Sensual.

  
Oh, and his back. Well. Sadly—or perhaps mercifully, she wasn’t entirely sure which—she didn’t have a lot of opportunities to look at his back. He wasn’t in the habit of parading shirtless on set, which was a damn shame, because that same lean, easy confidence that she saw in his arms was more than present in the muscles of his back. She knew he’d had some sort of injury, and on rare occasions, was aware of the pain he was working through during a particularly trying moment on set. She’d offered neck and shoulder rubs on more than one occasion; he’d accepted on more than one occasion. And oh, was it hard to remind herself to keep them G or PG rated. She’d taken to only offering when other people were around, purely to avoid making an idiot of herself.

  
His eyes fascinated her. They were young and old and deep and merry and a thousand other things, all contradictory and all at once. Most of the time, and around most people, they were completely guileless, the eyes of a child who’d been well-loved and never had to worry about his place in the world. But just about the time she was ready to write him off as just that, just a lovely child, his mood would change for just a second: just long enough to realize that these were eyes which had known pain and adversity, had known and survived them, had learned to embrace them and grow because of them. And then she’d look at those eyes again and the lovely child would be back, with eyes full of trust and love that sometimes, just sometimes, she wished were aimed more directly at her.

  
That jawline. Well. There was not a whole lot to say about his jawline, except that it was in rather uncomfortable proximity to his neck, and she had the maddest urge to just bite both of them, Probably best not to dwell too much on that.  


  
His ears…yeah. File those under “jawline”.

  
And then there’s his hair. Part of what makes him look twelve, and definitely contributing to thoughts she would never have if he actually were, So different to her own—the antithesis, really: silly, floppy, incredibly soft and silky, far too long and mostly in his eyes. Hiding the scar he’s worn since childhood, souvenir of a playground accident that was the precursor of the clumsiness that still plagues him. She’d run her hands through that hair, rain kisses across the hidden scar, pull him close for proper, deep, slow, open-mouthed kisses—if only she had the opportunity to do it when it wasn’t part of a sodding script. 

  
But the thing that tied everything together in one beautiful package had nothing to do with his looks. It was just him: goofy, intelligent, thoughtful, warm, achingly sweet and mind-blowingly sexy Matt. A bit cocky, a little pleased with himself—but in such a completely self-aware, self-effacing way that no one could help but be charmed. It occurs to her that there’s some truth to the phrase “charmed the pants off” someone—because to be brutally honest, it could happen.  
Down, girl. After two very public relationships that have ended in two very public break-ups, there’s just no point in even thinking about a third, even were it remotely possible.

  
But oh, how she wishes it were, because she thinks—she’s afraid—that in between the kisses and flirting onstage, and the hanging out and flirting off, she’s falling rather a lot in love with him. 

  
Damn.


	3. time and again, I thought that the end was just around the bend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 3 also by SandBar :)

 

The iconic shot will always be their hands: his and hers, frozen in the frame of the camera and joined by that bow tie.  That’s when the contrast first strikes.  Hers are so small and feminine, with the understated clear polish favored by Wardrobe tipping delicate yet somehow strong fingers.  His, by comparison, are massive.  Puppy paws, waiting for the puppy to grow into them—yet somehow also carrying a mature strength and a raw masculinity that suits and defines him.

Their eyes, of course, are made for the camera.  Whomever it was who coined the term _eyesex_ had to have been a BBC staffer.  Possibly a camera operator, because River and Eleven had definitely contributed some of the most smoldering looks in BBC history, even without touching one another.  Definitely someone who attended wrap parties, because next to the volumes written in the eyes of their realspace counterparts when each thought they were unobserved by coworkers—and more importantly, the other—River and her Doctor were rank amateurs.

The hair…dear lord, that hair.  Where to start?  With the continuity issues, between her battles with weather and humidity and just general volume, and the daily game of _where was his fringe in the last shot?_   With the untold hours both kept the Hair and Makeup department occupied?  Or the fact that it was actually rather lovely having characters who were so easily identifiable, even from the back, in stick figures, even in drawings made by the smallest of fans?

Physically, of course…both are just beautiful.  Actors do tend to be, but the amazing thing is that neither is a conventional _actor type_ :  neither the tall, thin woman with carefully sculpted cheekbones and surgically proportioned curves, nor the typical buff Adonis with just the right amount of colour in his muscular shoulders and perfect chest.  In fact, she is all curves, natural ones; breasts and tiny waist and lush hips and rounded cheekbones describing a golden beauty that has to be natural, could never be quantified by mere surgical precision.  In contrast, he is all palely and typically English, yet with angles and lines that make him seem so alien.  So different.  So beautifully otherworldly. Together they seem to hardly exist in the same plane, to intersect nowhere. Yet they do.  Everywhere, and it should be damn difficult to photograph them together, but is, in fact, magnificent.

Because the fact is that they were made for one another.  Of course there are logical reasons why that shouldn’t be: age, other relationships, careers, entire oceans and continents.  Anyone could think of a half dozen, and between them, they’ve no doubt come up with a dozen more.  But anyone who’s spent half an hour on set with both of them would also attest to the fact that they are not only besotted with one another, they belong together: two sides of a coin, two halves of a whole.  And whether they ever admit it to the world, to one another, to themselves…they are both stupidly, desperately, gloriously in love.

Perfect.


	4. you showed me there's more; I've got more in store, and you've got me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> final chapter by csiwholocked33, with many eternal emphatic thanks to SandBar for the astonishing middle two chapters of this story. :) ♥  
> P.S. if any of you dare to listen to the song the titles are from while reading this fic, fair warning: you will probably cry. I definitely did. Here's the link, just in case you feel so moved:   
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5sucb2mTAk

 

Ultimately, it was their hands that outed them. Even before Alex was noticed wearing a sparkling diamond on her left ring-finger, they couldn’t keep their hands from twisting together as they enjoyed a cuppa in the corner of a café in L.A., as they sat behind a table signing autographs at Comic Con, as they strolled in a park in Cardiff. In fact, once they found each other, it was only a matter of weeks before everyone and their brother had it figured out.

One might wonder exactly how it took two people so madly in love such a long time to find each other when, in a literal sense, they’d been as close as actors might often find themselves whilst playing a pair of lovers. It turns out though that it had simply been a matter of how Matt and Alex see things. From inside his old-young eyes, she was beyond out of his league, an unattainable dream to be fantasized about but never truly reached. Whenever her green gaze found itself lingering too long on his distinctive jawline or his supple arm muscles, she brushed the thought away with an internal laugh, because why would such a handsome 20-something ever _ever_ want the likes of her, damaged and sensitive and pushing 50?

One night after filming though, Matt decided he’d die if he never got to taste her lips without the premise of a script as his excuse. Overcome by the sadness of having just taped his final official episode as The Doctor and sick of the years of suppressed feelings and lust, he’d showed up on her doorstep with a bouquet of daffodils, which he knew she loved. As soon as Alex had put the flowers in a vase and safely perched it on her coffee table, he grabbed her by the hips and just kissed her with everything he had.

When he drew back and found her looking up at him with her gorgeous mossy eyes wet, he confessed his love. At first she was too shocked to respond verbally, instead wrapping her arms up around his broad shoulders and capturing his mouth again in a bruising kiss. Cheeks damp with happy tears and voice breathless from kissing, a minute later she confessed that she’d loved him for quite some time. _Oh Alex..._ he said softly, _it was always you._

Then he tangled his long fingers in her boundless curls the way he'd longed to do for so long and kissed her lips and face and neck until she could barely speak. 

After a bit the pair had found themselves collapsing onto Alex's plush bedcovers, half naked and revelling in the feelings of ecstatic relief and near-surreal levels of arousal that came with the release of nearly 4 years of sexual tension and unrequited love. At one point Matt simply cradled a round breast in his hand for a moment, marvelling at how perfectly she fit in his palm. 

When, later that night, he was driving into her over and over, pushing her closer to orgasm with each rhythmic snap of his hips, she scratched her nails fervently down his back. It was this that send him over the edge, and he came with a shout of her name. She followed a half second later with a cry that would've made River Song proud. 

They woke the next morning both equally terrified they'd dreamt the whole thing, and upon turning over and finding each other still fully present and real, they made love again before breakfast. 

The fans were absolutely ecstatic, and Kazza practically had a heart attack when they told her together. Arthur gave Matt a very enthusiastic hug that included lifting him off of the ground against his will, and Stephen simply shook both of their hands with an unsurprised grin.

So the moral of the story is that sometimes in life, people who are truly meant to be together do find each other. Sometimes they’re a few years apart, sometimes even 20. Sometimes they don’t find “the one” on their first try, and sometimes it takes decades longer then they’d planned. Sometimes it fades and flickers, seeming altogether impossible to behold. Sometimes it lingers years in both of their minds before, finally, someone reaches out and takes the other’s hand. But love is love, and Matthew Smith and Alexandra Kingston are completely and madly in love.

Alex being Alex, she often gets nervous that one morning she’ll wake to find the spell is broken and she’s desperately alone again. Matt being Matt, he’ll spend his whole life working overtime to convince her that such a morning will never come, not ever. And why is that? Well, because he sodding adores her, she adores him, and they fit together like puzzle pieces in every possible sense of the phrase. Always have, always will.

Always.


End file.
